Impressions: Mioposto Caffe e Pizzeria

Mioposto Caffe e Pizzeria
3601 S McClellan St
Seattle, WA 98144
(206) 760-3400

[Photograph by Adam Lindsley]

Breakfast pizza. Sounds crazy, right? Well it happens to be the best thing on the menu at Mioposto Caffe e Pizzeria in the Mount Baker neighborhood of Seattle. Thanks to the pureed Calabrian chiles serving as the sauce, this thing is a kick in the mouth. What makes it breakfast pizza? Pancetta and eggs, of course! Oh, and the crust tastes like Wonder Bread toast.

Want to learn more about the rest of the pizzas they serve? Check out the full review on Slice.

Impressions: Operacaffe

Operacaffe
835 4th Avenue
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 234-6538

[Photographs by Adam Lindsley]

I recently took a trip to Mexico to see my girlfriend, Meghan, and on the way back to the airport in San Diego we stopped into a quaint little downtown Italian eatery called Operacaffe. As there was pizza on the menu, I naturally had to try some.

I'm not sure exactly where this Margherita ($10.95) is supposed to hail from, but Italy isn't it. It's cooked in a gas oven so that the rim of the crust gets some nice char, but the top and undercarriage are left merely golden brown. No matter if the crust tastes good, right? Well, unfortunately it was flavorless. It had a decently open crumb, so just a bit of salt in the dough would cure this problem in a jiffy.

Moving inward, the tomato sauce is a tad sweet, but more than that, barely detectable under the landfill of aged mozzarella. There was so much cheese weighing everything down that it was nigh impossible to extract a slice without three dozen strands of gooey, greasy mozzarella tethering it to the rest of the pizza. As it was aged mozzarella, and sodium-rich, it nearly made up for the blandness of the crust being squashed beneath it.

This is gut-bomb pizza, plain and simple, a bizarre, over-topped hybrid of Neapolitan and New York-style. It's not awful (I mean, how wrong can you go with lots of cheese?), but it's not strictly good, either. I won't write this place off completely, though, because my girlfriend's ziti was pretty tasty. Just don't order the pizza unless you want a little crust with your melted cheese. 

Or bring along an extremely attractive woman to distract you from the food, as I did.

Impressions: Pulcinella

Pulcinella Pizzeria
10003 Rainier Ave S
Seattle, WA 98178
(206) 772-6861

[Photograph: Adam Lindsley]

VPN-certified pizza is almost always guaranteed to be good, though probably not great. Nowhere is this more true than at Pulcinella, which serves a fine pie, albeit a rather unexciting one. But hey, see that "For Sale" sign in the second-story window? If you ever wanted to live above a wood-fired pizzeria, now's your chance! Full review up on Slice now.

Impressions: The Independent Pizzeria

The Independent Pizzeria
4235 E Madison St
Seattle, WA 98112
(206) 860-6110

[Photograph: Adam Lindsley]

New review for Independent Pizzeria is up on Slice. Don't worry, it's not nearly as pretentious or ostentatious as the surrounding neighborhood, and the pizza is worth putting up with the rich schmucks strolling outside.

Opening: Nicli Antica Pizzeria

[Photo courtesy Scout Magazine]

When I visited Vancouver, B.C. last year, I went to the food boards and asked locals where to find the best pizza. Most of the posts directed me to Marcello, which was a crushing disappointment. But then I heard about a place that was going to open soon that was going to be Vancouver's first authentic Neapolitan pizzeria. That place was Nicli Antica Pizzeria in Gastown.

Well, I just received an email from owner Bill McCraig that Nicli opened today, Tuesday, February 7, 2011. They'll be open from 5pm to close, no reservations (even though there's a reservation form on their website, oddly enough). An early review from Scout Magazine is very positive, so now I can't wait to get back up there to try it!

Nicli Antica Pizzeria
62 East Cordova
Vancouver, B.C.

ADDED 2/15/2011 - TIP Reader "Lindsay" sent these photos along. She noted that they still have a few kinks to iron out.

Delancey Slice Review

Delancey

1415 NW 70th St

Seattle, WA 98117

(206) 838-1960

[Photo by Adam Lindsley]

The "official" review for Delancey is up on Slice. Go read it now while it's hot off the presses!